My Writing Experiments
by rimera
Summary: A series of oneshots which focus on the aspects of writing I am not good at.  This is for practice only... please review, and tell me what you think.  I am open to ideas.  Hopefully the practice and your reviews will make me a better writer.
1. Setting

A/N: Okay, if you've come to this story for an enjoyable story, full of rib-hugging humor or dark bittersweet angst, um... you need a different story. This is a practice story for me... actually, a series of practice stories, to practice and eventually get better at the parts of writing I suck at. Please, if you have any compassion whatsoever, read this and tell me what you think... I only write this particular story for practice and reviews, so that I can improve my writing style. Oh, and if you've read any of my other fics (there is only one other Star Wars fic, but I've been working on some DBZ ones...) and you have a suggestion I need to improve on, please let me know. I'm a toddler learning to walk here... it's gonna be unsteady, but I know how to take criticism, so please don't be afraid to dish it out.

I do not own Star Wars.

Chapter 1: Setting.

The mist permeated everything... from his clothes, the dead leaves and detritus he was sitting on, to the very air he breathed. The smell of earth and water mixed together smelled clean despite the age of this place, mostly untouched by sentient beings. Layers and layers of dead leaves and twigs, mud and other things Luke didn't want to think about, made the ground beneath him soft and almost cushiony. His clothes were too soaked for him to mind the wetness of it all... he had long since become used to never being dry. Even for someone from a planet covered with dry, grating sand, this gray, dismal place had become common enough to be comfortable.

With a glance, Luke regarded his master, the short green Jedi Master he had travelled all this way to learn from. The aged Jedi leaned on his small walking stick, which only pressed slightly into the soft ground he was standing on. Threadbare robes adorned the wizened master, and Luke wondered what they had looked like when Yoda had first come to this planet wearing them, as it was obvious he hadn't worn anything else since then. Much like Ben Kenobi was considered to be a crazy old hermit, Yoda actually was one... at least, to anyone else, it would seem so. Even to Luke, at first. Only a look into the creature's eyes would tell you otherwise... the ageless wisdom the being possessed could be seen there, centuries of joy and grief, of watching history unfold itself, repeat itself. Luke couldn't imagine what it would be like to know all that Yoda knew.

Breathing in the wet, misty air, the sounds of dripping and rustling and sploshing that he could now only hear if he tried to, mixed with the sound of air going into his lungs, the sound of his heart pumping blood the same way this place pumped life. That life was all around him, a warmth despite the chill of the wet atmosphere, pulsing and throbbing, humming, even in the air that rushed into his chest as he breathed. It was around him, inside him, and as he breathed out, his warm breath mixed its own moisture with the moisture already in the air, and Luke got the distinct impression that he was a part of this place. He contributed to the pulse, the hum, the sound of his breathing intertwined with the sound of the leaves rustling, his heart beating time with the dripping of water off the branch that hung over the nearest pool. The sound of his movements didn't mask the movements of the snake sliding down the bark of the tree... it mirrored them, made the whole effect a little louder, a little more vibrant, as though his sounds were needed to make the symphony around him complete.

He wondered, then, and his glance at Master Yoda proved he had come upon a grain of truth in his musings as the Jedi Master's eyes glinted knowingly before looking away. Luke was a part of it... he was like the snake in the tree, the water dripping into the pond... he was one of the sounds and sights of Degobah, new perhaps, temporary perhaps, but connected all the same. He was supposed to be here... he was part of the scenery.

A/N: Okay, what did you think? I know what I think... I made it cerebral. I tried not to, but I picked the wrong scene to just talk about scenery, because I put people in it. Maybe I should try another chapter that has no people in it, so I will be forced to talk about the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feel of a place, instead of talking about what a character _thinks_ about it. Writing this was hard at first, but once I got inside Luke's head it became easy, almost too easy... I definitely need to write a chapter with no one's head to get into. Maybe then I will be able to write a chapter about people, from an omniscient point of view. I'm open to suggestions.


	2. Setting, Take Two

A/N: Okay, thank you, thank you, thank you! You know who you are! I'll do my very best to implement your suggestions. This is Scenery, Take Two, and I'm going to keep characters in it, maybe just one, but I will focus on writing like I talk and think (which are two very different things, I realize), and NO ELIPSES! Hehehe. It's time for me to explore the other forms of punctuation. LOL!

Here goes:

SCENERY, TAKE TWO

The boy watched the suns set. It wasn't unusual for them to set, or for him to watch them. After all the devastation they caused during the day, watching them go down was actually something quite beautiful. He could look at them now; what was forbidden during the day was allowable now, as his little spot on the planet was now far enough from the twin suns to permit it. The blinding white light they were was now a burning orange, and the sky that was blue before was pink now because of them.

The baked bit of rock and sand beneath his feet crumbled beneath him a little as he adjusted his position. There were places out there where the dirt was brown, dark brown, even wet. Where water formed in pools on the ground, and people even swam in it. Places where water fell from the sky, and some planets that were only water, and the natives could breathe under it. But he didn't care about water. He was a moisture farmer; finding water was his life. A life he hated.

He kept his eyes on the suns. They would go down soon, and he'd have to get inside. Not even this close to home was he really safe; sand people had been known to attack farmers on their own lands, if they were alone. But right now the sky was a bunch of colors at once; purple, red, orange, pink, and blue further up, deep blue. Even the sandy, rocky ground that stretched out flat as far as he could see was painted, purple coming up out of the gray. Only at sunset was Tatooine beautiful.

Not that he cared.

His feelings were a tug-of-war. He contemplated, again, running away from all of this, going to join Biggs at the Academy, going somewhere, _anywhere_, away from here.

And he knew he couldn't, wouldn't. Responsibilities weighed down on him, responsibilities that, years ago, he had been proud his Uncle Owen had trusted him with, now chained him to this horrid, searing, boring place.

This beautifully painted place.

Sighing, he watched the last bit of sun slide under the straight, flat line that was the horizon. The colors remained on the sky, but started to fade, as though the desert wind were whisking the colored sand away. The purple disappeared from the gray of the ground, and the pinks and oranges and reds became gray, then blue. And his time was up; a call from inside woke up his responsible self, telling him it was time to stop dreaming, time to get inside and sleep. He had a lot of work to do tomorrow. The desert wasn't kind, and wouldn't give up its moisture without a fight.

And the Academy was so, so far away.

* * *

A/N: Okay, how was that? I know I didn't depart completely from cliches, but I tried. And I think I've replaced elipses with semicolons. I'll need to work on that. 


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